Those who seek a meaningful life gather in the mountains of Kurdistan.

Those with great hearts gather in the ranks of the guerrilla. Because guerrilla life is a dervish-like life. For those with revolutionary hearts, every breath and every step is now for a meaningful life.

In the mountains of Kurdistan, in the most beautiful years of her youth, Newal Mêrdin, whose real name was Nûdem Kurt, was one of those who believed in and felt the greatness of the revolution in her heart, and who did not turn away from the struggle. With her pure and clean heart, she joined the ranks of the revolution and took part in the search for truth fearlessly and with a self-sacrificing spirit. Newal Mêrdin walked toward the enemy in a self-sacrificing way and reached martyrdom. What she left behind was the meaning of responsibility toward her people, and how devotion to a free life should be lived.

“She Was Always in Pursuit of the Truth”

The Kurt family migrated to İzmir in the 1990s because of the repression and village burnings in Kurdistan. Nûdem took her first steps in life far from her homeland. From a very young age, she witnessed the enemy’s oppression against the Kurdish people. With this consciousness, Nûdem began her search for truth. She first joined youth work. At a young age, she took her place in the work with the revolutionary spirit she had created within herself. With the responsibility that this work gave her, she participated fearlessly.

Although she searched for her lost truth with her own purest feelings and with all her resistance, she was always aware that one side of this search remained incomplete. Her longing for Kurdistan came from her awareness of her own roots. Although Nûdem knew that she was struggling for a purpose, she also knew that this struggle would gain even greater meaning if she carried it out in the place where the truth had been lost: Kurdistan. For this reason, she always dreamed of the relentless struggle being waged in Kurdistan.

“She Was in the Kurdistan She Longed for and Dreamed of”

In 2014, after one of her relatives was executed by the enemy in Amed, she made a vow of revenge and joined the ranks of the guerrilla with the excitement of stepping toward freedom in her heart and soul. She made this participation with great desire and belief. For her, the only way to be a people, and to live with one’s own history, culture, language, and sense of self, was to enter the struggle. Opening her heart fully to reality, she spread her wings toward the ranks of struggle.

Nûdem was now in the country she had longed for: Kurdistan. From then on, Nûdem struggled under the name Newal. Newal was deeply affected by the honesty of the guerrilla and by the relations of comradeship. Because she had grown up far from Kurdistan, she struggled at first with mountain life. Yet she never saw these difficulties as an obstacle for herself; she confronted and overcame them.

Nûdem was like a mountain on which her comrades could lean their backs. In every way, she gave confidence to her comrades and educated them. With the revolutionary qualities she carried, she drew attention in every place she went.

“She Created Respect Through Her Life”

Even before Newal joined the guerrilla, she was a young woman who had made it her aim to create within her own personality the measures of guerrilla life, the PKK’s way of life, and the principle of free life. In the ranks of struggle she had entered, she was in search of uniting herself with life without hesitation. For this reason, wherever she went, she created life with respect. As time passed, she began to deepen in every sense. Through the trainings she received, she became even more conscious and felt great anger toward the enemy. Because she became aware of the kind of genocide the Kurdish people were living through. Newal, the young heart of the revolution, pushed every environment she was in toward greater order and discipline through her stance, style, and conversations. In such matters, she always played the role of a natural vanguard.

“She Always Saw Herself as Responsible Toward Her People”

Through the trainings she received, Newal became aware of her own reality and entered into a constant effort to deepen herself further in the principles of women’s freedom. In all the work she took part in, she had an active and successful stance. As a YJA-STAR guerrilla, Newal always saw herself as responsible toward her people and wanted to repel all attacks developing against the Kurdish people. In the Metîna area, she took part in the work with great excitement and enthusiasm in order to fulfill the duties of the period.

“She Always Took the Line of Self-Sacrifice as Her Basis”

Guerrilla Newal was always with her hand on the trigger against possible enemy attacks. She remembered at every moment her comrades who had fallen as martyrs in a self-sacrificing way during the epic resistance that developed in the Metîna region, from Zendûra to Tepe Hakkarî, and she wanted to be worthy of them. For this reason, she always prepared both herself and her comrades against enemy attacks that could develop in the area.

During the occupation attack that the Turkish state launched in the Metîna region on June 16, 2024, guerrilla Newal was always searching for a way to strike the enemy in order to avenge her martyred comrades and the Kurdish people. Just as she was an example to her comrades in life, she was also an example in war. On June 30, 2024, on the anniversary of the martyrdom of the self-sacrificing commander Zîlan, guerrilla Newal wanted to carry out a powerful revenge action against the enemy. In this action, together with her comrades Jîyan and Dijwar, whose hearts, like hers, beat for freedom, she fought the enemy with a self-sacrificing spirit and reached martyrdom.

The road is overcome by walking it. Truth is found by searching for it, and a person lives the reflections of this in their own memory and being, moment by moment. The truth is this: the honor of being an individual must not be trampled upon, and the barriers placed before existence must be removed. On the path she set out on for this, guerrilla Newal became one of those who tore down all obstacles before existing forever as an immortal fighter. The greatest legacy she left to her people and comrades was to become the voice, breath, and spirit of an honorable life. This spirit is the only reality that will live forever.